Re: AIX - i5/OS feature comparison was the notorious Steve's soapbox

On 9/7/06, qsrvbas@xxxxxxxxxxxx <qsrvbas@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Mike Cunningham wrote:
>    4. Re: AIX - i5/OS feature comparison was the notorious Steve's
>       soapbox (Mike Cunningham)
>
> And IBM isn't in the hardware business, they're in the
> consulting/support/services business. And IBM can sell a lot more AIX
> services than they can sell OS/400 services.

IMO, out of everything ever said on this subject, the above paragraph
says about all that's needed.

Think about it. If IBM can't find significant revenue from services for
our platform, what does that say about what the platform capabilities
are? IBM could choose to reduce price _if_ services could pick up the
difference.

What services are we specifically talking about? Tivoli? DB2?
Consulting services? In each instance IBM has competition which means
the service is market priced. ( dont laugh )   IBM does sell the wdsc
language bundle on the i5.  It gives away the open source language
toolset on the p5 [1].  The advanced job scheduler is needed on the
i5. So is a change management system.  Keep in mind that the p5
marketplace is many times larger than the i5. And the p5 can do a lot
more work. So sure there is a lot more demand for consulting services
and application packages on the p5.   If your i5 is being accessed by
clients using ODBC you need a support staff. If the i5 is hosting a
web site you need a support staff.  Based on the recent discussion
here, if you are running a lot of SQL, esp from client apps, you need
to support the system. I dont think the "system is so great IBM can
make any aftermarket profit on it" argument flies.

[1] http://www-03.ibm.com/servers/aix/products/aixos/linux/